10:13
Abe took the vanguard and Siobhan and Patti fell in behind them. Pressing their backs together so they formed a small circle, they moved across the dark expanse of the center of the room. Abe could hear the other two groups forming up and moving in other directions.
“Dan?” Abe yelled.
Dan’s voice came from the left. “Yes.”
“Kim?”
“We’re at the painting of the body. Definitely a void. Think we’ll hang here and hope the guy attacks again.”
“That works!”
“Also we’re in place if the bayonette horse rider comes.”
“If the twins come at anyone can you steer them our way?” Siobhan yelled.
“Yes,” came from several voices.
“So,” Dempsey called, “We have left, Kim’s group has center, Abe’s group has right?”
“Yes!” Siobhan called back.
“Yup!” came from Kim.
“And I’ve got the rest,” Ben hollered from somewhere.
“Incoming!” Dempsey yelled.
“Which one?” Kim shot back.
“Bayonette.”
“Got it! We’re ready. Drive them this way!”
Dempsey’s feet thumped across the wood floor, heading in the direction of the military painting to Abe’s left. There was a distance separating Abe from the painting and they didn’t pay that much attention to the action, sure the others had it.
“Move!” Ivan yelled.
“Moving!” Dempsey yelled back.
“I’ve got the left!” Kim hollered. A rush of wind followed her words.
“I’ve got the, uh,” Prairie called, “Never mind! It looks good!”
After that Abe kinda tuned out the noise. It sounded like they’d got the soldier back in the painting. Abe’s group still had three paintings to look at on the right wall.
Siobhan stepped around the bench in front of the portrait artist painting and peered intently at it. Patti settled in with her calves pressed to the bench on the side away from the canvas and held her cudgel out. Sass leaned from the window of the house on her belt, peering into the dark center of the room.
“I’ve got you covered. Go look.”
Abe nodded and sidled up next to Siobhan. There were so many details in the painting! It was very possible the twins could be slid in several places. Like near those drapes. Were they pulled back slightly by a non-existent hand?
Abe turned to Siobhan. “The curtains?”
Siobhan squinted and leaned closer. “Maybe? How about over here next to these two men? Do they look like they are standing away from the wall?”
“They do but does that mean someone should be standing behind them?”
Siobhan shrugged. “So, we haven’t eliminated this one.”
“No.”
“Darn.”
“Let’s move to the next painting.”
Abe stepped to the left and away from the canvas and Siobhan followed. Patti cast a look over her shoulder then started sidewalking along the wall. Abe took the front, ink pooled in their hand in case something charged out of the dark at them. Siobhan kept facing the wall, turned just a little to watch their right flank.
They kept moving in that direction until they reached the next circle of light, bench, and canvas. Abe continued along the wall, in front of the bench, then stopped on the left side of the canvas. Siobhan stopped moving facing the right side. Patti kept facing the dark in the center of the room.
The rectangle of the frame hung long side along the wall, leaving about five feet between Siobhan and Abe. The majority of the painting was a seascape, white caps kicked up by an invisible wind. There was a very small slice of beach along the foreground where it was possible the twins might have been walking.
“If the girls were in this picture it’s likely they’d be either to the left or right as images like this usually focus on the power of nature,” Abe ventured, “If they are from this painting we’d maybe see them walking into or against the wind and probably their hair would be blowing to represent the power nature has over man.”
Siobhan leaned in to stare intently at the edges of the painting then slowly walked inward along the length of the canvas. “I’m not seeing anything obvious.”
Abe made a visual assessment of their side of the painting. “Me neither. Probably would be a stretch that the twins would go here.”
“Move on to the bedroom painting?”
“Yes.”
From behind them Abe heard Gwen cry out, “Guy in black!”
“And we’re moving!” Dempsey called out.
Abe slanted a glance at Siobhan. “Keep moving?”
“Keep moving,” Patti answered. “Looks like they are, yep, approaching the painting with the body driving something in front of them. We’re good to move.”
And they did. Move. Towards the last painting on the right wall. The bedroom scene. Siobhan and Abe stopped in front of the canvas. It was large, almost square though the height of it was slightly greater than the length.
It was painted in dark tones. A canopied bed could just be seen to the left of the painting, most of it cut off by the frame but the canopy was clear above and there was a short amount of the foot of the bed showing on the canvas. A cat curled on what looked like a velvet bedspread folded at the base of the bed.
The back wall was largely free of furniture except for a small ornate chair with a cushioned back and seat and bare wood arms and legs. A small table sat beside the chair and a book rested on its surface. The wall was patterned, either with paper and paint. Wainscotting defined a chair rail below which was smooth green paint. Above the chair rail hung portraits and small landscapes with ornate frames.
The right wall, visible in the painting where the left was not, held a series of windows looking out on an idyllic country scene. In front of the windows was a makeup table. One of those fancy ones fancy girls or girls who aimed to be fancy had, with spindly legs painted white and a triple-framed mirror mounted on the back of it.
Abe slanted a look at Siobhan. “Fancy mirror. For fancy girls?”
“Maybe?” She leaned closer to the canvas and squinted. “Can you look at this?”
Abe shuffled over and peered where Siobhan pointed at the mirror on the dressing table.
“Check out the reflection. Does that look like–”
“A twin?” Abe finished for Siobhan. “It does.”
They turned around and spoke to Patti’s back. “It’s this one for the twins.”
“Great as I think, yep, here they come.” Patti shoved out her punch shield, blocking a twin coming in from her left with hands outstretched. “Seriously, girls, there’s more to fighting than scratching and grabbing hair!” She flicked out her cudgel to the right and blocked the other twin’s hands. “Represent! As a female-representing individual I am offended by your style.”
Abe snorted and jumped over the bench to run behind the closest twin and snapped their arm around her from behind, crossing their arm over her chest and clasping their hand on her opposite shoulder. The girl flailed her arms around but didn’t make any contact with Abe.
“I got this one!” Siobhan called out from somewhere to Patti’s right. Abe shot a look in that direction to see Siobhan with her arms wrapped around the girl from behind. Siobhan planted her head in the middle of the girl’s back to avoid any contact with her swinging arms and started forward, pushing the girl in front of her.
Patti looked back and hopped over the bench then started directing Abe and Siobhan. “A bit to the left, I mean your right, Siobhan! Abe, can you move to your left? That twin is going to, oops, never mind, she already hit the bench.”
Patti hustled out and grabbed Abe’s twin with her hands around the girl’s arm just below the shoulder. She walked backwards, steering the twin, then stepped away when her back hit the canvas. “Stay right there. Just in case they have to go in together. I’ll get Siobhan.”
“I’ve got it. Mostly.” Siobhan called then went ‘oof’ when the side of her leg collided with the bench. Limping slightly she shoved her resisting twin towards the canvas. When Patti stepped in and grabbed the twin Siobhan relinquished her so she could sink to the bench and massage her thigh. Patti pivoted and held the twin in front of the canvas. She looked at Abe. “On two?”
“On two.”
“One. Two.” Patti shoved her twin towards the canvas at the same time Abe did. Abe felt the twin start to flatten under their arm. They pulled their arm away and stepped back to watch the twins flatten out and adhere to the canvas. They shrunk very slightly.
One twin flowed over the canvas to sit in front of the mirrors on the makeup table. The other settled behind the mirrors with one arm draped over the top of them and their head resting on the back of their hand while they looked at their sister with a look full of love and devotion.
Abe looked at Patti and Siobhan. “I think that’s it for us. Let’s join the others.”
Patti pushed away from the canvas and headed in that direction. Siobhan reached up a hand and straightened her flower crown then planted her hands on the bench to push to standing. She looked to the end of the room. “Let’s go.”
Abe and Siobhan walked down to where the others loosely clustered near the painting of the dead guy. Where before only his corpse had been there in a pool of blood, now the man in the dark leather knelt beside him with one leg planted in the blood. It was hard to tell if the guy had killed the other one or come upon the body and kneeled to investigate. There was no look of regret on the dark clad man’s face, but if he’d killed the other guy maybe he wasn’t feeling regret?
“We’re good,” Abe announced as they joined the fringes of the group then turned to stare into the dark.
“I think we only have the one dog left,” Kim said from behind Abe.
As if called by Kim’s words Kirby came thundering out of the darkness chasing a small white dog. Kirby headed in Prairie’s direction. The white dog veered off, making a beeline for Ivan. Its mouth was open, its ears were bouncing, its tail was whacking away. Clearly it was living its best life.
Ivan stooped down and grabbed the dog before it could slam into him. It gave a silent bark then licked Ivan’s face from bearded chin to brow. He reared back and blew liquid from his nostrils. Paint specks flew from his nose, dotting the air.
Then the dog seemed to remember it was supposed to be fierce because it curled its lips back, wrinkling the wirey hairs of its muzzle, and then leaned in and nibbled the collar of Ivan’s jacket. Ivan pulled the dog away. “Dude!”
He was a particularly large man and the dog wasn’t a particularly large dog, although it was no teacup or purse size creature, so he was easily able to hold the pup away from his body at the end of his outstretched arms. Prairie giggled next to him then stooped down to wrap her arm around Kirby’s thick neck under all three of their heads. She buried her face in the side of the neck near the left head and whispered, “Thank you, Bunny. Thank you, One. Thank you, Hello.”
Again Abe was left to frown at the names. For a mikro. Then it dawned on them that each of the heads had a name. So, Hello was a weird one but, yeah, it made sense.
Now that they could see the painting dog clearly Abe could tell that while it was of similar coloring to the dogs that merged into the hunter painting where they had smooth coats the one in Ivan’s hands had a rough and wiry coat. And its face was different than the those other dogs. Where they had smooth triangular faces this one had sort of a super floof beard. Again the dog gave a silent woof and wriggled in Ivan’s grip.
“No, you don’t, little man,” Ivan admonished. “You need to go home.” Ivan cast a look at Abe. “Any guess where that home is?”
Abe looked at Dan then at Kim then back to Ivan. “There’s a few options?”
“Is that an answer or a question?”
“Both?”
“Fantastic.” Ivan tightened his grip on the shimmying dog, but it was clear that holding it at arm’s length was not going to be a long term option. So, looking down at the dog with a stern expression he drew it into his chest so he could cradle it against his jacket.
“Do not bite me,” he admonished the dog. The dog looked up at him, lifted his floofety eyebrows, then turned and gnawed on Ivan’s jacket.
Ivan shoved his free hand over his cross-cropped hair. “Let’s get to guessing.”
Abe looked at Dan. “Maybe the children playing?”
Dan referenced his notes. “Or the Shepherdess painting. Maybe it’s a herder?”
“Does that look like a herder?” Kim asked leaning in from around Ivan to give the dog a fond smile.
“Probably not the Knight.” Gwen offered. “Or the scene with the crows and the dead bodies.”
“Or the seascape or the ballet scene,” Siobhan added. “But maybe the courtesan? You look like a courtesan dog, don’t you,” she raised her voice an octave and leaned toward the dog. The dog gave a silent bark and leaned forward to lick her jaw.
Siobhan leaned back and wiped the not spit off her skin then flicked it to the ground. “Well, that’s kinda gross.”
“No grosser than normal dog spit,” Gwen said then looked at Kirby. “Sorry, Kirby.”
The center head boofed. Then Kirby trotted over to Gwen, jumped up so their front legs were on Gwen’s shoulders – yes, Kirby was easily that large – and both the right and the left heads licked her face, from either side while the center one’s gaze held Gwen’s.
“Ah!” Gwen pushed Kirby’s paws off her shoulders and vigorously wiped her jaw with both hands. “Dog spit!”
The right head of Kirby made a distinctly Scooby-like chortle as he trotted back to Prairie’s side. Prairie looked at Gwen with a big grin to which Gwen rolled her eyes dramatically and sighed.
“So,” Siobhan said, hands on hips with the sword Dempsey had given her tucked in her voluminous bag with just the hilt sticking out, “We’re at the far wall so do any of these make sense for the pup?”
The back line turned to look at the paintings.
“Picnic?” Prairie offered.
“Maybe.”
“The duel doesn’t make sense. No,” Ivan stopped to admonish the dog that had given him another big slurping kiss that damped his shirt down to his chest. That was probably going to leave a stain.
“The murder scene,” he picked up after planting his chin on the pup’s head to keep it from crawling up his chest and slathering his face again, “and the battle wouldn’t work. Maybe the landscape.”
Dempsey cast a look over his shoulder from the front line. “And that finishes the back wall. So two possibles there.” He looked down the length of what Abe had been calling the right wall but was the left from their viewpoint facing the entrance wall. “Could be in the twin painting.”
“Would there be two attackers in one?” Patti asked.
Dempsey shrugged. “Who knows.”
“Let’s assume not for now?” Patti suggested.
“Sure. We can always double back.”
“My Dude!” Ivan snapped and held the dog away from his chest. “Did you just pee on me?”
There was a suspicious line of wetness down Ivan’s front heading for his belt.
“Do painted dogs pee?” Gwen whispered to Prairie.
“I don’t know but maybe?”
“Gross.”
Dempsey picked up like there’d been no interruption, like the state of Ivan’s for-sure-ruined shirt mattered not at all to him. “Assuming one attacker per painting then down this way we’ve got the seascape which seems unlikely, the painting of the portraitist,” he cast a look at Abe, “That’s a word, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. The portraitist painting does have dogs in it. That guy may have escaped it.”
Dan made a note as Dempsey continued. “The full body painting of the woman isn’t out. As Siobhan said probably not the ballet scene but the kids with the ball are a definite maybe.”
“That’s up to,” Dan stopped to run his pencil down his notes, “with the back wall and the right wall that’s up to five possibilities if we discount canvases that already have a returned figure. Along the other wall we’ve got the courtesan, the flowers which don’t make sense, and the battle we’ve discounted as unlikely. All together,” he scratched the top of his ear then looked up from the notes, “that’s six possibilities.”
Ivan pivoted to look at the wall behind him. “Might as well start at the closest.”
He walked to the center of the wall then looked quickly left and right. Determining there was no difference in the distance between his position and the picnic scene to the far left and the landscape to the far right he strode towards the landscape.
The dog wriggled and kicked and made it impossible for him to travel effectively with it at arms’ length. He looked down at the dog with a stern stare then gathered it close against his chest again where it nestled and then sighed.
“Don’t get comfortable, my man,” Ivan murmured down at the dog as he drew up to the landscape. He eyed it for a mikro then uncurled the dog from his chest and thrust it at the painting. The substance of the dog flattened out for less than a mikro, like the length of time it took Abe to blink, then the dog was leaning into Ivan and licking his face.
Ivan grunted. “One down, five to go.”
He pivoted and headed down the length of the wall to the picnic scene where he repeated the shove of the dog at the canvas with equal success. Or failure. Really, failure.
Heaving a big sigh he started down the left, now right, wall towards the painting of the courtesan. “Do you want to go to the naked lady?” He baby-talked down to the dog. The dog leaned up and tried to kiss him again. Dodging the painted tongue with its painted ooze Ivan thrust the dog at the painting of the courtesan. Once more the dog flattened out for no more than a breath before popping back to three-dimensions in the cradle of Ivan’s fingers.
“Hey, man,” Ben called from somewhere to the front of the group, still hidden by the darkness, “I’ll go to the naked lady.”
“Ha, ha. Want to come over here and take Fido?” Ivan quipped to his bestie.
“Sure.” Ben’s voice grew closer but Abe still couldn’t see him. “Hand him over, I’m great with dogs. And naked ladies.”
“Happy to.” Ivan craned to search the darkness. “Where are you?”
“Right here.”
“Right where?”
“Right. Here.” Ben’s voice was very close. Like real close. Abe spun around, thinking maybe they’d just missed Ben walking up to their left. Nothing but darkness.
“Not funny,” Ivan’s voice took on a wary tone. “I can’t see you.”
Abe squinched real hard and looked to Ivan’s left where Ben’s voice seemed to have originated. Their Magick tingled and they felt the flow of ink from their collarbone over their cheeks. No! They snapped to the ink. They hated when it ‘helped’ by flowing over their eyes. It was just too close to what was going to happen eventually and it freaked the ever living goobershnitzles out of them.
The ink just ignored Abe’s protest. They felt it pool under their eyes then flow along the waterline of their lower lid. When they blinked they could see the ink that made up the world. Their friends all stood out clearly as themselves, technicolor, completely unobscured by ink, as they always did. Abe had a theory it was because they defined themselves, kind of like what Rapunzel had said about the kidnap victims having their story taken from them.
But, wow that was way off track. Abe shut the thought back into their mind and focused on the dark next to Ivan. They squinted and leaned in. There seemed to be a dark form, different from the ink defining the world. Kind of like it was sitting on top of the scrim of it.
“Ben?”
“Yes?”
“Can you wave your arm? Either one?”
“Yessss.” There was a whole lot of skepticism in the word.
The dark form undulated in a vaguely arm space and with a vaguely arm shape. Abe squinted and focused their Magick on the spot. There was a distinct void where Magick should have been in the location. Like and not like where the others interacted with the world.
“Again?”
The black form undulated again, confirming Abe’s suspicions.
“Ben!” Excitement buoyed their exclamation. “You’re black!”
“You just noticed that now?” Ben’s droll response came from the black form.
Ivan stiffened. “That’s, uh, racist.”
“No!” Abe pointed at the Ben shaped dark form. “He’s black. Can you see him?”
Ivan looked around. So did Patti, Dan, and Siobhan. It was Ivan that answered. “No.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Abe, well, asked a question.
“Sure,” Ben’s tone clearly broadcast he was humoring Abe.
“Is the room dark for you?”
“No. Why?”
Abe held up a finger in a “in a mikro” gesture. “Is the room dark?”
A chorus of yeses came from all around. The Ben shape moved like it was looking around.
Abe walked over to the Ben shape, blackened right hand out. “Can I?”
“Sure.” The way Ben drew out the word suggested the opposite, but he didn’t move away when Abe carefully laid their hand on the Ben shape’s possible shoulder. It felt like a shoulder. It did not feel like ink. At all. Not even a wisp.
Abe stepped back and looked at where Ben’s eyes should have been. “This isn’t ink. I think it’s your shadow Magick. I think you are using the shadows as camoflage.”
Ben’s head shape turned and looked at his arm shape as he lifted his elbow shape out to the side.
“Try pulling them back? That works with my ink.”
“Pulling them back.”
“Uh, think about drawing the shadow into your pores. Tell them that is where they belong and they need to go home.”
“That works?”
Abe shrugged. “Does for me.”
“Okay,” the Ben shape’s head bent towards the elbow. “Go home.”
Nothing happened. Ben remained obscured.
“You need to use your Magick when you say it.”
“Okay.” There was a pause, then Ben repeated loudly, “Go home!”
Abe watched as the dark receded from his arm. It traveled up, revealing Ben’s jacket sleeve then the jacket collar then Ben’s face. First his jaw then one eye, wide with wonder, and half a grin. Kind of like the Cheshire Cat from Alice’s Adventures.
Once he got into it, Ben called the shadows away so fast it was impossible to track. To start there was a Ben-shaped black form, then an arm, collar, and half a face then there was a complete Ben. He stared down at his revealed arm for another mikro then looked around the space, his gaze skidding over the pools of light and the revealed canvases in the largely dark room.
“Whoa. It’s dark in here.”
“It is,” Dan said in a dry tone then turned to Abe. “How did you guess that?”
“That its dark?’
Dan lifted his brows and Abe swallowed a giggle. “That it wasn’t dark for Ben.”
“It was light when Ben covered us in his shadows to get out of the dark off The Path getting Roanne. It was dark for all of us until Patti made her ball. Except Ben was never in the dark.”
“Damn,” Ben said.
“It’s a nifty skill!”
“Nifty.” Ben’s tone was dry.
Abe bobbed their head. Because it was a nifty skill. Maybe Ben took exception to the word but no way was he going to argue relative invisibility wasn’t pretty nifty.
“Can you control it?” Ivan asked, ever the scientist. Abe could already see the gears moving in Ivan’s head. There might even be a little smoke coming out his ears.
“Maybe.” Ben held his hands in front of himself, knuckles in, then turned them so his palms were up. Then he repeated the motion. After staring intently at his palms he looked up and at Ivan. “I know how to make it go away but it seems instinctive when it engages. I’ll work on it. Being invisible could be useful.”
“Camouflaged,” Ivan corrected. He threw his palm up to intercept a tongue sweep from the dog in his arms. “No. Bad pup. Bad!”
“Invisible,” Ben repeated, “Camoflage. Po-tay-toe. Poh-tah-toe.”
Gwen cocked her head to the side and examined Ben. “You are going to use this for nefarious things.”
“Yep. Filthy. Dirty.” Ben grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Nefarious things. Muahaha. Ha!”
Siobhan turned to Gwen. “I’m glad he’s our our side.”
Gwen grinned. “Yep.”
Abe’s eyes widened as they looked down towards Ben’s feet. Or, Ben’s not-feet. “Uh, Ben?”
“Yes?”
Pulling a comical face, Abe pointed down at Ben’s not-feet. Ben followed the direction of Abe’s pointing. His brows went up and his grin turned to a partial grimace as he looked at the place where his knees flowed into nothing.
“Uh?” he scratched his head while perusing his obscured lower legs. Siobhan looked down and made a very quiet, “Oh” while covering her mouth with her hand. Gwen’s response was far more Gwen. “Ben! You have no legs!”
“Correction,” Dan lifted his pencil to point at Ben’s upper legs. “He has no lower legs.”
Gwen leaned in and gave Dan a significant stare. “Thanks, professor.”
Ben leaned down and brushed his hands over his lower legs from knee to ankle. Shadows flowed under his hands, revealing his pants and then his boots. Giving the top of the boots an extra flick, Ben rose back up to stand. “There.”
“No!” Ivan growled. “Bad dog!”
Abe turned to see a new sheen of paint on Ivan’s beard. The goatee was almost entirely matted down by fluid. Abe rubbed their own chin and grimaced. That had to feel pretty gross.
“We can try another canvas?” Abe offered to Ivan.
“Please.”
“Naked lady?”
Ivan grinned and made a point of looking around. “Where?”
Abe snorted then pointed at the courtesan painting. Ivan took a big step over the bench in front of the canvas and thrust the dog forward. The dog looked at the canvas. Looked back at Ivan.
Ivan pulled the dog back then thrust it forward again, bumping its head into the canvas. He held the dog out at arm’s length, head smooshed into the painting for several mikros then pulled the dog back and cradled it to his chest. First he looked down at the dog with a narrowed stare, then he slanted it to the canvas like it had betrayed him. After giving the painting a silent what-for, Ivan turned and looked down the length of the wall and the canvases mounted on it.
“No other ones on this side, right?”
Dan looked down the wall and said, “Right.”
“C’mon, little man,” Ivan spoke down to the dog which looked up and tried to give him a lick from throat to chin. “Damn it, man.” He lifted his eyes and looked at the group. “This was my favorite shirt.”
“Maybe the paint will just disappear when we finish the test?” Abe offered.
“I’m not that lucky.” Ivan turned on his heel and strode across the gallery, heading to the opposite wall. The good thing about the dog being the last attacker was there were no more attacks. Unless you counted the affront to Ivan’s shirt and goatee. And neck. And jacket.
Abe snorted and hurried to keep up with Ivan as he approached the painting of the portrait artist and their subject. Ivan repeated the shove dog at canvas move with equal success. Which was to say he ended up holding the dog against the canvas, leveling both the dog and the canvas with an exasperated look that the dog returned before he pulled the dog back against his chest, dodged another tongue bath, and walked over to the full-body portrait of the woman in the tall canvas next to the ballet scene.
Again no luck on the melding dog to canvas.
“I’m just going to sit,” Kim waved vaguely in the direction of the eliminated wall, “over there.”
Like she’d popped a cork on a vial of a whole lot of what everyone else was feeling, Patti then Siobhan and then Gwen all indicated they’d be sitting as well. Because, as Siobhan said as she walked over and planted herself on the bench in front of the twins’ painting, “We’re not being attacked and we should rest while we can. No clue how much more there is to these tests.”
“Guessing a lot,” Gwen said and slumped down next to Siobhan, bumping Siobhan with her hip to make room on the bench then dropping her cheek onto Siobhan’s shoulder.
Siobhan looked down on Gwen with a smile then started rummaging through her bag. “Go on. Daylight’s wasting. Or, well, you know.” She waved vaguely at the dark center of the room then went back to digging in her bag.
Dempsey walked over and planted his shoulders on the wall beside the twins’ painting and settled his shield on the top of his feet. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes then took a deep breath. Clearly he was prepared to grab that rest Siobhan mentioned.
Once Patti plunked down against the wall next to the courtesan painting, facing Kim on the bench before the painting, Ben and Dan came over to flank Ivan. Abe and Prairie walked on the center side of the benches with Kirby next to Prairie and closer to the center of the room.
Prairie laid a hand on the closest of Kirby’s heads and looked to Abe. “Bunny is interested in what happens to the dog.”
Abe looked over at Kirby then turned to look at Prairie’s profile. “I keep meaning to ask. Bunny?”
“This,” Prairie patted Kirby’s left head, “is Bunny. The right is Hello and the center is One.”
“Each head has a name?”
Prairie smiled down indulgently at Kirby. Or, uh, Bunny. “Each head has a fursonality.”
“Wow. That’s awesome.”
“Nifty, even.” Prairie slanted a look at Abe and smiled.
Ivan skipped the ballet scene and approached the final canvas on that side – the painting of the garden scene with children playing with a ball. He turned and gave the others an exaggerated smile then looked down at the dog. “Time for you to go home, Fido.”
The dog looked up at him then popped up to lick his jaw. Ivan rolled his eyes then patted the dog gently on the head before holding it gently to the canvas. “Bye, buddy,” he spoke softly down to the dog then pressed its side against the canvas. When the dog’s form undulated subtly Abe caught their breath. Yes! They pass…
The dog wiggled. The dog kicked. Then the dog let out a huge fart.
Ivan turned his head and coughed. Ben covered his mouth with his fist but it didn’t hide the smile. “How does a painted dog fart?”
As Prairie giggled down at Kirby and Abe bit their lip and looked intently into the dark to their left, Dan shifted on his feet and turned his head, probably to avoid the lingering oily stink.
Ivan glared down at the dog. It turned its head and looked at Ivan. Ivan looked at the dog. He worked his jaw to the side and pursed his lips then pulled the dog back and pressed it to the canvas again. With the same results. Which was to say none.
Ivan turned and looked at Abe. “I thought this would work.”
“Me too.”
“Let’s try the ‘it’s unlikely’ paintings.”
“Okay.”
Ivan stepped over the bench and headed to the Impressionist flower painting with the group trailing after him. He side-stepped the bench and pressed the dog to the canvas. And nothing happened. Nothing at all.
Working his jaw he walked quickly to the battle scene with crows at the end of the wall. And again no luck with the dog merging with the painting. This time Ivan huffed a breath out his nose and stomped over to the opposite wall and shoved the dog at the seascape. Again a big nope. This time Ivan straight up growled which had the dog perking in his arms and craning to look up at Ivan’s face.
Ivan looked down at the pup with a clear twitch in his left eye. “We’ll get you home, pupper.”
The look the dog gave Ivan suggested they would not. Abe wasn’t sure they didn’t agree with the dog. Ivan might have a new painted pupper. And the group might have a new home in an empty art gallery.
No. Not thinking that way.
Abe kept to Ivan’s side as the large man stomp-strode to the ballet painting and pressed the dog’s nose into it. The canvas bent at the pressure and the dog turned to look at Ivan, the picture of betrayal with quivering wiry beard and limpid teary eyes.
“Sorry, dude.”
Ivan narrowed his eyes and glowered at the painting like it owed him money, then he turned to the group with the dog cradled against his chest.
“That is all of them.”
“All of them without a returned figure.” Dan swept his pencil to encompass the entire wall. “Not every canvas.”
Ivan gave Dan an “are you freaking kidding me” look that probably was not befitting a career politician. Usually they were smoother. But usually they were not covered in the paint version of saliva, pee, and the lingering scent of an oily gas emission. Dan retained his usual calm, only shifting his toothpick from one side to the other of his mouth. He manipulated it with his tongue, bouncing it in the new corner, then looked over his shoulder at the far wall. “Around again?”
Ivan glowered then smoothed his features. He reached up to smooth his goatee with his hand but stopped the motion before coming into contact with his paint wet beard. He looked down at his palm, then turned his head and looked at the dog and gave a long-suffering shake of his head.
Lifting his gaze from the dog he focused on the far wall and the painting of the lady with the fan. “Might as well start from the beginning again.”
He heaved a sigh and let his shoulders slump, then straightened them and hiked the dog in his arm.
The air with which he approached the painting of the woman with the fan said he didn’t have much hope of succeeding in returning the dog to the canvas. But he still gave it the old college try, scooping his hand under the dog’s tummy and lifting it to press against the canvas. For a moment it looked like it might work. The dog sighed and settled against the canvas. Abe waited with bated breath for the dog’s substance to dissolve to paint. And waited. And waited.
Ivan blew a long breath from his lips then pulled the dog close to his chest again and started walking in the direction of the painting the boy in blue belonged in.
Abe pushed their hair behind their ear, scowling when the curls fluffed their way out of smooth and bushed around the back of their ear. They walked along beside Prairie who was still bracketed by Kirby. Or Bunny, One, and Hello. They frowned. It was important to acknowledge how an individual defined themselves. They should know.
So, if Kirby’s three heads were Bunny, One, and Hello they’d make an effort to acknowledge them as such. Abe would have to ask Prairie later to clarify which head was which. They were pretty sure of One being in the middle but was Hello the left or the right? And what kind of name was Hello? An awesome one! That was what kind of name it was.
Ben walked beside Ivan, hands in pant pockets and a whistle on his lips. Dan walked on the other side, making notes in his book although how he did it in the near dark was kind of a mystery to Abe.
They approached the next painting. Dan and Ben stepped back a little, leaving Ivan plenty of room to hold the dog up in the cradle of his two hands.
“C’mon, little man,” Ivan said half under his breath as he pressed the dog’s bearded muzzle to the canvas.
And the muzzle spread out, going flat, as did the rest of the dog. From one mikro to the next it levitated above the painting, shrinking and slowly drifting to the left. The dog turned its head, and how it did that with it being flat and all was beyond Abe and gave Ivan a doggy happy face with mouth hanging open and tongue lolling. It was that profile that merged with the painting as the dog settled onto the canvas with its head resting on the top of the shoe of the man standing next to the boy.
A sound from behind Abe and near the entry wall drew their focus and they jerked around. The door they’d originally entered opened, the click of the latch loud in the nearly silent gallery. There was something on the wall over it. Shifting around Ivan and Ben, Abe walked over to stand in front of the door, hands on hips, and head back as they read, “A Perfect Bride is Cultured.”
They looked back over their shoulder. “I think we passed the test.”
“And that,” Patti called from down the gallery as she pushed up to stand, “sounds a lot like we can get out of here.”
“Here the gallery or here The House?”
“Probably not The House,” Prairie said quietly from Abe’s side.
Abe shrugged real big. “We can hope, right?”
Enter The Woods 